


Goldfish

by ShadCat



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Merpeople, Human/Monster Romance, M/M, Merpeople, merman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:26:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24025804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadCat/pseuds/ShadCat
Summary: Ardyn was the king of the merpeople, who lured humans to death with their beautiful songs. One day he saved the life of the orphaned merboy Prompto and then took care of him.Years later Prompto was a full-grown merman and just falled in love with a human. An attraction that normally couldn't end well.
Relationships: Prompto Argentum & Ardyn Izunia, Prompto Argentum/Noctis Lucis Caelum
Comments: 9
Kudos: 62





	Goldfish

**Author's Note:**

> This story is an OS right now. But if you want to read more let me know and I'll probably add more chapters :3

With gentle and calm swims, Ardyn slid closer to the sunken metal block. Very carefully while keeping a close eye on his surroundings.

The merpeople knew immediately when one of the nameless monsters polluted their wonderful sea with their cruel waste and they had learned from it. They could come hunting when one of the wooden monsters sank. Then it was safe and sometimes humans drifted in the water as if they were just waiting to be picked and eaten by them. It was an event that they always looked forward to a little. Wood was not dangerous. But the other monsters, which were made from the cold gray material, were dangerous. When those monsters drifted to the ground, the merpeople stayed away. Sometimes black liquids spilled out, killing them if they got between their gills. And even if not, so many had already become ill from unknown substances. No, they had to stay away from the cold gray monsters.

However, there was something special about this grey monster. His guards had told him that even after days under water they had heard a human voice calling. It was the words of human language that were echoed in the water as it should be absolutely impossible. A human couldn't live after such a long time under water.

This had sparked Ardyn's curiosity. As a king he was allowed to send his spies or guards to explore, yet he knew that his people would be critical of it. He recently became king and the red of his scales had made his people critical enough of his leadership. Such colorful, shining scales were always viewed with a certain caution. As if the bright color alone aroused caution in them. If Ardyn now endangered life by exploring a ghost voice, he would have to rebuild the trust he had gained. Right now it was just going well for him. After the war they won under his leadership against an outside tribe, his people had learned to love him.

No, Ardyn would not endanger this trust. He would go check it out himself.

The merman cautiously slid his hands against the cold gray and shuddered how icy cold it really was. As if it wanted to suck his life out. Humans really only created monsters.

The monster's belly was opened and Ardyn carefully pushed himself into the gap. It was dark, but it wasn't a problem for his nocturnal eyes. Strange equipment and boxes were scattered everywhere. It was a mess.

" _Is somebody here_?"

Ardyn called carefully into the darkness, which was followed by silence. He spoke in the language of the merpeople. The seconds passed and the merman was already thinking about swimming away again when he suddenly heard a whimper.

"Help..."

Indeed! Human language!

Ardyn immediately swam deeper into the belly of the monster. His ears, like those of all merpeople, were very sharp and could easily find the source of the sound. The voice had come out from under the rubble.

Something big black, without temperature, lay across the rubble with a weight that no human could pick up. But Ardyn lifted it and tossed it aside as if it didn't weigh anything. Even if he could hardly believe his eyes then.

There were merboys.

In something large and transparency, there were two smaller constructs from the cold gray, which were formed like the prison bars. Inside the two gray constructs were two merboys. One with a sparkling silver fin, the other with a golden fin, as the golden scales shone even in the dark. The silver child was dead. Ardyn could smell the decay. It was a nauseating smell that spoke of the days of death and the thought of being locked up like this with a former friend or brother, so that you could smell his decay, almost made Ardyn's soul bleed.

The golden merboy lay on the bottom of his construct. He was still alive and his gills fluttered weakly. The skin was sunken and his eyes, that were of such a beautiful light blue, were dark and kinda lifeless now. The golden child stretched out his hands towards him. He looked so weak. So starved.

"Help me...!"

He spoke human language ...!

Ardyn opened his mouth when he looked at the golden merboy. He had never met one of the merpeople that could speak the language of the humans!

If the boy's eyes didn't close as if he couldn't take it any longer, Ardyn would have looked at him longer. But he knew what a request for help looked like in any language. So the red merman tore the lid off the construct as if it were the easiest in the world and carefully took the boy out. He was so small. How old he might be? Maybe five, or six?

" _All is well. I'm there_."

Ardyn pressed him gently and safely against his chest and the golden boy instantly nestled his whole body against him, which made Ardyn smile. He felt the smaller fin hit his stomach softly. Even if the boy couldn't understand his language, he would still hear the calming tone.

The boy had to eat something!

The king didn't hesitate for a second. With the boy firmly in his arms, he shot like an arrow to the surface of the water. It was barely another second before he caught a gull off the surface of the water and broke its neck with a wave of the hand. He then was sinking deeper with the golden boy again. The golden child had pressed against him wordlessly the entire time and seemed to yearn for his body heat, as everyone of the merpeople did.

When Ardyn lifted the seagull up to him, the little boy tore it out of his hand reflexively and, with newly awakened powers, slamed his sharp teeth in it and gobbled up the seagull like a big boy. Its blood and feathers slowly colored the water. Ardyn felt a strange pride in himself when he saw this. There was a little fighting spirit locked up in the small boy.

He was a strange merboy. Not only that the color of his golden fin was completely extraordinary and of a beautiful nature, no, this one also had individual small scales spread over his human-like half. Ardyn had never seen anything like it. The top half was always scales-free, except for the tips of the ears. But the boy had little golden spots on his human-like skin, which shimmered even stronger here in the sunshine. It was wonderful. But so rare that it was almost impossible.

Ardyn could let him go now. He had saved and fed him, he could now send him back into the sea and could continue with his own life. But he didn't like this thought. Not only that the merboy with his extraordinary scales would have an incredibly difficult time to be accepted between his own people, obviously he couldn't speak the language of the merpeople. If he started talking in human tongues to the other, they might even kill him out of fear. The king couldn't allow that, not just after saving him from death.

The merboy with the blond hair which matched the gold of his scales so much, looked up to him again with those blue eyes. He looked at him and although he was so young, the intelligence shimmered in his eyes.

The boy smiled. He smiled at Ardyn before he nestled his head against his chest and curled up in his arms with his golden fin. A hum came from his body. Awkward, unfinished, wrong.

Ardyn realized with horror that this boy could not sing. He couldn't sing their people's songs. And for the merpeople singing was everything. They wooed their partners with their songs, they lured humans to their deaths with their singing and every occasion had its own melody. If this boy couldn't sing, he would surely not survive long. He would die or live a life of total loneliness. Well, if Ardyn let him go now. Which won't happen.

In a deep, honest protective stance, Ardyn wrapped his arms around the merboy and held him close to him before swimming towards his kingdom.

" _Don't worry, little goldfish. I will take you home_."

~

A small sigh escaped Prompto's throat as he watched the human from the distance. The pretty black-haired man. Just to see him made the merman blush, as he leaned gently against the rock behind which he was hiding. It was insane, Prompto knew that himself. His tribe lived from eating humans and every other tribe lived by staying away from them as much as possible. There could be no love between a man and a merman. Still, Prompto found himself brushing his slightly damp hair over his pointed ears. Hiding the tips of his ears on which the same golden scales shimmered as on his fin. Maybe he could talk to the black-haired man if he thought he was human. The very thought made Prompto coo a little. He really wanted to speak to the human. _Noctis_. The other two humans who had accompanied him sometimes had called him like this.

A sigh escaped Prompto as he hid behind the rock and closed his bright blue eyes. Clasping his hands under water in front of his belly, where the human-like skin slowly became his golden fin. The young merman began to sing softly. The song he was practicing for the human and which would make Ardyn tear him underwater in horror if he ever heard it. Because the song he had made for Noctis was not one that was made for humans. It was not a song which lured human to certain death and promised them sweetness and ruin. No, it was the singing with which you would like to find a partner. A song which was asking for the favor of the chosen one, who would either get into it by instinct or remain silent and give the answer this way.

The golden merman had practiced and refined his song for a long time, even if he still felt insecure. It was the first time that he wooed someone and then of all it was a human. Prompto should have written the song in the language of the humans, not the language of the merpeople. _Ugh_. He also knew that humans didn't sing like their people did. He had seen it. The humans and the merpeople were very different from each other. The humans where much more distant, always mindful of the words they uttered. Without their language humans were nothing, while the merpeople trusted so much in the art of their singing.

Okay. Should he dare...?

Prompto peered past the stone and saw Noctis packing up the fishing equipment. Prompto took a deep breath and looked around, as if Ardyn would appear at any moment out of nowhere, before slowly swimming with his head above the water to the pier. So slowly that the water around him would make no sound and in such a position that his hair would not get wet again. He wanted to keep his ears covered. He only wanted to see Noctis' reaction for a moment, if he thought he was human. Before Noctis noticed his gills or paid too much attention to the golden scales on his skin. Prompto only wanted to see for a moment how the other reacted to him when he thought they were two equal beings.

He had been watching Noctis for so long and he had to admit he was scared at the beginning. Prompto had swum close to the beach to find something to eat. No humans like the rest of his tribe was looking for. Rather small animals that went swimming. As much as Ardyn's teasing comments embarrassed him and no matter how many times the red king reminded him of what they had done to him as a child, the blonde simply couldn't kill them. Not all of the humans in his childhood had been malicious. Some had been kind. After they had muzzled him, some of them had stroked him and once a woman had even pulled him to her chest and cuddled him. She had felt so dry and rough, but also nice and warm. Well okay, but Prompto had to admit that these were exceptions. Most humans were as cruel as Ardyn had said, he couldn't deny it. They had starved him until he did what he wanted and if he got too close without their permission, they had hurt him. Sometimes even so much that he couldn't swim properly for days.

Yet, Prompto just couldn't believe that all of them were malicious and he couldn't bring himself to kill creatures who might be as intelligent as they were. Just killing them without knowing if they deserved it. Even if they tasted good. Ardyn had given him with a sigh parts of his prey and if the humans were already dead Prompto's morals couldn't save them anymore. But killing a human himself was something else entirely.

No, when he first saw Noctis, it was just a macabre curiosity. The black-haired human had pulled fish after fish on land, those beings that were so similar to the merpeople, and Noctis was happy about their struggle for survival! The black-haired man had looked joyfull when he had looked at the dying fish. Sometimes the two other taller humans also got around big fish and spoke hymns of praise. Prompto had only felt ice cold shivers from afar. How would they have reacted to catch a fish the size of him...?

After a while, Noctis had reminded him of a black cat. They sometimes purred contentedly when they managed to pull a fish ashore with their sharp claws. And this thought had been kinda cute again.

Yeah, it had been curiosity which had always lured Prompto to the beach in search of whether the human was back and indulging in his cruel game again. Prompto actually found the human often at the pier. At very different times of the day, sometimes alone and sometimes accompanied by the other two people. And at some point, Prompto hadn't found his game cruel anymore.

The man with the glasses had spoken of a new recipe, Prompto had heard that and understood that the humans just had to hunt like the merpeople. Just as they ate humans, the humans ate the fish. They all had to survive and that was fine.

...and besides, Noctis was cute. Prompto couldn't describe it any other way.

The golden merman noticed how unhealthy his attraction to the beach became. How his heart beat faster when he thought of Noctis’ black hair, which shimmered in the light of the sun. Or his joyful smile when he was happy over his catch. There was something attractive about good hunters, that was their nature.

Even Ardyn had already started teasing him if his son had fallen in love, as red as he was on his cheeks all the time and how thoughtfully he swam through the sea. Oh, if Ardyn knew...

...he would probably try to eat Noctis.

The thought alone was terrible. Ardyn could never find out about his visits and could never know about the affection he felt towards Noctis.

Prompto thought that if he spoke to Noctis only once and realized that he would treat him like every other human, when he realized that he was not a human himself, his attraction would go away. That his own body would remember that they belonged to different worlds, if Noctis showed him that he would not see him as an equal. Then Prompto would never sing his song to Noctis.

But at the same time the golden merman contradicted himself. Although he wanted to sober himself, he also wanted to talk to him as long as he thought he was human. Just have a normal conversation with the man who stole his heart. The first romantic love he had ever felt. He just had to talk to him.

Prompto arrived silently at the pier and lifted his upper body out of the water. He was so excited. His heart was beating against his ribs and his cheeks was blushed. This was maybe his only chance, he had to do it right!

Taking another deep breath, Prompto crossed his arms on the pier and looked at Noctis who had turned his back towards him and unscrewed the fishing rod. Prompto gently laid his head on his arms and checked again that neither his ears nor his gills were visible before he smiled.

"Hey."

Prompto's call was gentle so as not to scare him. It had been so long since he had used the language of the humans in air that his own voice sounded very strange. But that was fine. It sounded human.

Prompto waited for Noctis to turn to him and the golden merman felt his own mouth open. Up close he was even prettier. His skin would also be dry and rough, but it looked also beautiful and warm and clean under the clothes...! These beautiful eyes...! And those cute round human ears. _Aw_. A little sigh escaped Prompto before he was smiling and said in a soft, curious voice:

"I've seen you fishing here many times. Are you having such fun?"


End file.
